


Family Law

by Divinion



Series: Fairy Tail Dads AU [26]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Drama, Family, Family Secrets, Gen, Magnolia Dad's Club, fairy tail dads AU, ftdadsau
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Divinion/pseuds/Divinion
Summary: Fourteen years ago, Sherry Blendy and Lyon Vastia shared one fateful night together. Now, the conflicted fourteen-year-old Chelia discovers that her father is not the man that she believed all these years. Their journeys are destined to intertwine, but will the truth destroy their family bonds, or pave a strong future together?
Relationships: Ren Akatsuki/Sherry Blendy, Sherry Blendy/Lyon Vastia
Series: Fairy Tail Dads AU [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555675
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fairy Tail Dads AU





	1. Innocence

_May 12, 2020  
_

The sounds of singing and pop music played by an overworked speaker resonated throughout the community centre. To some it was sweet, to others it was a nail through the forehead. Bouncing around the wooden floorboards and the pale teal walls, escaping through to the small reception room at the front.

“I’m sorry, the halls have ended up double booked due to the holidays,” the receptionist apologised to the two men. “The girls will be finished up in the next five minutes or so, I promise. Then the day-care centre will be free again!”

Lyon nodded, a polite smile written across his face. “That’s quite alright. We can wait.”

“Or we could _not_ ,” Gray rolled his eyes.

The older male scoffed. “Nonsense! This meeting is the best thing for you. See, they’re stopping already!” Lyon told him.

It was true. The sounds of the singing were replaced quickly with childish giggling and running around the room. Bags, coats and all other belongings were quickly gathered by the gossiping teenagers, little care for what was around them as they discussed their latest rehearsal successes. 

_“Did you hear that high note? And the dance routine… That last step was so hard!”_

_“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it!”_

_“I’m sure we’ll do much better next time.”_

_“We’re already getting much better!”_

Gray tucked himself into the corner of the room as the small collection of young women raced out in front of him. They bounced around with an excited air, chattering and wishing each other the best of luck. It only gave Gray reason to give Lyon a long, flat stare. 

“I promise you; it’ll be worth it,” Lyon reassured him, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ve recommended similar groups to many, many others in your exact position. They’re a great way to assist you in getting over your issues.”

Gray’s frown turned into a glare. “ _Issues_?”

“See, Aki agrees with me,” Lyon offered, leaning down to the child by Gray’s side. He in no way seemed to be in an agreeing mood, too busy staring at the small crowd from behind Gray’s legs and holding onto his father’s hand tightly. Lyon didn’t seem to notice this. “We’re going to help daddy get over his issues. Aren’t we Aki?”

“Please don’t talk to my son about _issues_ …” Gray hissed at him, grabbing onto Aki’s hand even tighter.

“The room should be free now,” the woman behind the desk called out to them both. “Second door on the right.”

“Thanks,” Gray huffed, quickly moving away and towards the door.

Lyon grinned proudly, watching his friend disappear with his son. Without a shadow of doubt, he knew that Gray would take great things from this experience. It had been an excellent idea - after all, Lyon had tried and tested this many times with other clients.

“Mom! We got through the second verse!”

“Excellent work, both of you! Oh Wendy, I _love_ what you’ve done with your hair!”

“Th-thank you, Mrs Blendy…”

“Oh Wendy, how many times? You can call me-“

“Lyon!”

Lyon blinked suddenly, looking back to the man calling his name. “S-Sorry?”

Gray frowned back at him. “Are you coming or what?” he asked him impatiently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just… thought I recognised someone,” Lyon explained, quickly ignoring his instincts and following Gray into the room.

\-----

“I saw him today.”

Ren turned to his wife, pausing. It wasn’t her words that made him concerned, but the way that she held her arms over her body, the awkward glance away, the pauses between each breath. It was all enough to make him stop and listen. 

“Oh?”

She hesitated. The words caught on her tongue. It held an almost ominous presence in the build up to her admission. “Her father.”

He paused again. He turned away, putting another item back into the cupboard. “I see,” he said simply.

She bit her lip. Squeezed her arms tight. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him around. I’d assumed he’d moved away again. But he was at the community centre at the same time as Chelia. If I’d been a few minutes late…” she gave a heavy, defeated sigh. “Not that I suppose that would be a bad thing…”

Ren just listened, continuing to put away the groceries in a solemn silence. Hearing that his silence was being returned, his hand stilled. “I don’t think this is my problem…” he said slowly.

She sighed again, this time more dramatically. No matter how sharp and uncaring that might have sounded to the untrained ear, Chelia understood. “No, you’re right. I need to decide what to do with this. We’ll stay a family no matter what happens. She isn’t going to stop loving you, you know,” she told him with a twinkle in her eye.

He turned away, taking an excruciatingly long time to put away just one can of peas. 

She giggled. Ren was being as proud as always, but she could always see the love there, even when he didn’t like to admit it. “Thank you,” she told him, walking back to his side and placing a kiss on his cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

——

“And then she started going on about _love_ and how we are all still a family,” Chelia finished explaining before ducking her head into yet another dusty box.

“I see…” Wendy told her softly, brushing the dust from another label. ‘Chelia’s Toys, 2006’. She pushed the box aside. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like finding out your father isn’t-I mean, he is-but-“

“It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret,” Chelia admitted, pulling out random items and inspecting them. “I always suspected. I don’t look anything like him.”

“That’s true… but even so…” Wendy whispered quietly.

“Nothing’s changed,” Chelia told her seriously. “Even though he isn’t related to me by blood, he’s still my dad. All I’m looking for now is my father.”

Wendy nodded. It really was admirable watching the way that Chelia had dealt with the news that would have shattered her own world. To the point where she was concerned that denial was burning strong inside her, no matter how well she seemed to have rationalised the information. The only thing left for Wendy now was to be a support, a close friend, and a sister to prove not all family relied on blood.

“Um… Chelia…” Wendy paused, trying to get the words right that she’d already thought through a hundred times. “If your mother had this conversation with you… why didn’t she tell you who your father was? Why are we having to look in boxes?”

Chelia paused. It was a question she’d both expected and still struggled to find an answer for. “I didn’t want to ask her...” she admitted, looking down. “I didn’t want her to feel like I was-like I was turning my back on Dad,” she said.

Wendy nodded slowly. There seemed to be a lot more emotions going on there than what Chelia was willing to say, but that at least seemed healthy. She reached over and put a hand over her friend’s.

“We’ll find him together,” she promised her.

Chelia’s smile lit up. She jumped on Wendy, grabbing her into a tight, tight hug. “Thank you, Wendy.”

Wendy gasped at the sudden affection but smiled back warmly. She held on tight, knowing that it wasn’t for her own sake that they’d share this moment. “Any time,” she promised, giving another squeeze before letting go. As she did, her eyes drifted to another box in the far corner, and a name that filled with promise. “Look,” she gestured.

It was everything Chelia had both anticipated and feared. The cardboard box with the words scribbled along the side; ‘Sherry High School/College’. She slid across the floor to the box, pushing away the thick coatings of dust. A line of Sellotape that had long since lost all adhesive properties came away easily in her hands, as she opened the flaps. Everything seemed painfully slow to reveal. An oversized school sweatshirt, with gold embroidery of a snaked creature emblem. Old schoolbooks that were filled with notes, love-hearts and scribbles that could have one day been considered ‘important’. Dusty shot glasses that had been packed and forgotten about, tainted with memories of exciting nights.

Usually, Chelia would have found it all fascinating. A different side to the loving mother she had always known, one that had her whole life ahead of her and – from the contents of this box – seemed content to spent it chasing dreams, scribbling love-hearts and enjoying life. She began to pull out pictures, so many frozen images of long nights ago. She had been a popular woman, wearing a wide smile and more often than not with her hands cupped into a heart shape.

“Your mother was beautiful,” Wendy commented, glancing at the pictures that Chelia was putting onto the ground. “She-she still is beautiful! She was very beautiful in these pictures, though…”

Chelia nodded. “She was,” she agreed, starting to see the patterns. Though it often seemed she would be with a different person every night, she finally saw the friendship groups emerging, until she confidently could pick out a picture with four young people. “I think… I think this is it…”

Wendy glanced over, a serious look on her face. “… You’re sure?”

A small pause from the young woman before another nod. “The way that mother talked about him… I’ve only heard her talk that way about me and my father. It was someone that meant a lot to her. One of her closest friends. It has to be someone from these pictures, one of these… one of these men is my real father.”

\----

Sometimes it felt like Lyon was a dark mark upon the world of children.

He was the monster that forced parents to fight and separate. He was the demon that turned lives upside down. He was the villain who asked the painful questions: _Who do you want to live with? Did they hurt you? Who do you feel safe with? How often would you like to spend time with these people?_ They were no questions that any child should have had to answer, and it was not an easy question to ask. Sometimes Lyon had to play the bad guy, for the most important reasons.

There was always a secret sense of dread when he saw a child in distress. There were the background thoughts running through his head, the guilt of separating a child from comfort, the terror that if he made one wrong step someone could get seriously hurt, and then there was that look. The one that cut him right to his core. Even if he forced himself into that polite smile, tried to offer a peace offering of candy, and pray the child was not traumatised for life.

Lyon’s eyes stayed pinned to the small child, watching him even as he took continual sips from his coffee mug. Waiting for him to make a sign, some kind of indication of the trauma he’d caused. Or perhaps the salvation he’d brought.

Instead, Aki just brought him a small block. Lyon looked at him quizzically… and turned back to Gray.

Gray nodded with a small smile. “He’s giving it to you,” he said with a small smirk, relishing perhaps a little too much in how uncomfortable Lyon looked.

Lyon looked back at the ‘gift’, reaching over and taking it. “Oh… thank you very much.”

The child beamed and walked off again to search for more toys.

“For someone who works with kids all day, you sure are awkward around them,” Gray commented.

It was hard for Lyon to understand what Gray’s tone meant, even after all his years of training in other’s true motives. “I usually don’t talk to children as young as Aki…” he admitted, looking even more surprised as another wooden block was passed to him by a very proud looking Aki. “And when I do, they’re usually not social visits… Does that bother you?” he asked.

Gray paused for a few seconds, before shaking his head. “You’re a natural,” he said.

Lyon didn’t feel like a natural. He put down his mug to take yet another block, as Aki disappeared into his toybox and produced five more. He giggled as he was racing back and forth across the room now, trying to drop them into his father’s friend’s lap, a fun new game to explore.

“If you say so…” Lyon said, muttering yet another ‘thank you’ and looking more perplexed by the second. “Is he usually so, uh, generous?”

“No,” Gray smiled faintly. “It means he likes you. And trusts you.”

Lyon swallowed hard. That innocence. He was clearly far too young to understand. Either that, or he had been through too much and resorted to taking kindness in the most unlikely ways. “Well… I like him too,” he admitted, smiling back.

When Aki came running back over, instead Lyon held out one of the building blocks back in his direction. The child’s eyes widened, taking it in his hands and inspecting it intently. He smiled and made a happy little sound, running off again to repeat the game again.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a kid yourself…”

Lyon paused. There it was again, an edge of sadness he’d been expecting whenever around children. No matter how much joy or love it filled him with. “I… got distracted,” he excused himself, looking away. He didn’t want to talk about the years he’d wasted. On work, on some _girl_ , on paths taken that left him much older and much less wise than he’d hoped to be by now. It wasn’t a choice he’d made, but many smaller choices which had left him alone.

It became clear he wasn’t going to say any more. In the spirit of distraction, Lyon quickly became caught into the new games with Aki. He poured the blocks onto the coffee table and within a few seconds had been showing the young boy how to rearrange them. Or Aki had been showing Lyon. It was hard to tell, Gray noticed, finding a very small hint of a smile on his face as he watched them both. 

At least this, this small protected bubble, felt safe.


	2. Charges

Over the next few weeks, Chelia pushed herself into her dancing. Her singing. Her friendship with Wendy. All preparing for that grand performance at the end of the month, where the hall would be filled with people she loved; strangers and admirers alike. A stage where she didn’t have to wonder about who was related to her and who wasn’t, and the minefield of emotions that would come with that.  
Try as she might, it didn’t stop the thoughts from lingering.  
Her curiosity was a burden she bore close to her chest. Even talking to Wendy, she would deny her interest, saying time and time again that she had very little reason to chase for her biological father. She had Ren, and he was the best father she could have hoped for. To ask for any more was greedy, or even dangerous.  
But she kept the picture, hidden in the folds of her lyric sheets.  
She sighed as she tidied it back away with the rest of her dancing clothes. She enjoyed these recitals, but it was consuming so much of her already packed schedule and she was no where near to her required volunteer hours for the semester. She simply didn’t have time to worry about something like family drama!  
This is the lie she told herself as she waved goodbye to her friends at the door, glancing instead to community centre’s notice board and the sets of cards and jobs. Keeping busy would surely help her! She would have to find something to balance the grades and community services. There would be some housewife in need of a helping hand, an afterschool club that needed extra mentors, anything that could qualify as experience…  
But instead, her eyes glanced back to a shiny blue and silver card. The quality alone made it stand out, three times as thick and carefully embossed as any other slip. This was a real business card, just like in the movies. And while it said nothing about help needed, it caught her attention.  
Reitei Law Firm | Family Law  
Her eyes crossed the phone number and address over and over, but it was the last line that really caught her eye. Family Law. If anyone knew about these situations, it would be a Family Lawyer. She had savings, and how much could anyone really charge for just a few innocent questions? Just to understand more about the pandora’s box she was potentially going to open.  
She took the card, stuffing it along with the hidden picture.  
For a few days, she didn’t do anything with it.  
On the third day, she took it out, with her phone in hand. The number typed swiftly into the keyboard. But she didn’t press call.  
On the fifth day, she put the number in again. Sitting cross-legged, staring and trying to imagine the questions she wanted to ask. The man on the end of the phone had probably heard so many. Along with every horror story, every sad ending, every broken family…  
She threw the phone on the bed and didn’t touch it again.  
Not until three days later.  
She typed so quickly her fingers stumbled. Making mistakes. Erasing. Correcting. Clicking call.  
It was ringing. It was ringing. She held her breath. Ringing. He wasn’t going to answer. He wasn’t going to answer because he knew how foolish this was and how young-  
“Hello, Reitei Law Firm, Lyon Vastia speaking.”  
She still couldn’t breathe. She’d hoped as soon as he spoke, she’d find some new confidence, but right now she couldn’t even find air. A ‘hello’ became a small squeaking noise.  
“Hello? Sorry, I’m struggling to hear you…”  
She cleared her throat, shaking her head. Remembering her specific requests. “Please don’t charge me!”  
There was a pause from the end of the line. “… Excuse me?”  
“Please don’t charge this number!” she gasped again, getting ready to press hang-up at a moment’s notice.  
He almost sounded too patient as he recited his well-practised line. “Ma’am, this phone line is only chargeable to your standard network rates. Until you are set up on an account on our system, we’re unable to charge you for any additional time. Now, how can I help you?”  
Now, finally, she let out that gasp. That was her biggest concern out of the way. Now it was onto the hardest parts. “Um, you’re a family lawyer, right?”  
Another pause. “Yes. How can I help you?”  
He was clearly doing something in the background. She could hear paperwork and the clacking of a keyboard. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just wondering if you can help…”  
“Well, that certainly depends what you need. How can I help?”  
That was the third time he’d said that. She knew she had to get to the subject quickly to keep that dangerously cool nature in check. “I was wondering if you could give me some advice. O-on adoption. Well, not adoption. My friend, you see, she-well, she realised that her father isn’t who she thought. And she’s looking for him. Her real father, I mean. I was wondering if you knew about that sort of thing…”  
“Well, I would suggest that if your ‘friend’ is serious about finding their identity, I can recommend a good PI.”  
“PI?”  
“Private Investigator.”  
“Oh!” Chelia could feel herself blushing hard. “No-no, not like that…” she stammered quickly. “I was looking more for some advice, really. You must have seen this sort of thing before, right?”  
Another pause. Longer this time, with more sounds of paperwork. “Can I take a few details from you?”  
“O-Oh…” she felt panicked. This was normal, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if she wasn’t willing to pay for some of this advice, especially if it was from such a close source. This kind of detail would be needed eventually. “Yes. What do you need?”  
“Name, Address, Date of Birth.”  
“M-my name is Chelia Blendy, I am at 6 Lamia Street, Magnolia. My date of birth is…” Potentially a problem. “February 19th, 1954.”  
“… How old are you?”  
The numbers were skipping before her eyes. Curse after curse was flashing in her mind. Why couldn’t she work out how old she would have been with that date of birth?! Why couldn’t she have planned this better…?  
“As I suspected. Miss Blendy, I’m going to ask you a very serious question and I want you to be completely honest. Are you in danger?”  
“What??” she blinked, suddenly alert. That question had come from no where! “No! Of course not!”  
“And your current family, do you feel safe around them? Remember, this is completely confidential.”  
Her mouth hung open. “Yes! Of course I do! I-I… Why would you even ask that?!”  
“I just need to sure,” he said. As he spoke, his entire tone seemed to slow into a softer and gentler tone, almost unrecognisable from his cold introduction. “If you do ever feel uncomfortable or unsafe in your living situation, you can talk to social services or the police. If you would feel more comfortable dealing with a different source, you can ring this number and I will ensure that it is properly handled. OK?”  
Was that standard? Her head was spinning. Quickly she pulled her legs up to her body, cocooning into a tight ball. “…OK?”  
“I’m afraid that I can’t give you much advice. It… honestly isn’t my place, and in my experience, it can make any decisions you make even more difficult. You must understand that generally people will only come to me if something has gone wrong. Every situation is different with their own variables, and there is no right or wrong answer.”  
Every word seemed to sting more than the last. Chelia tasted each one, hovered with the sensation before letting the truth reveal. She felt stupid for not thinking it herself, stupid for even picking up the phone, and even more stupid for not being able to come up with a damn date of birth…  
“Are you still there?”  
She nodded shakily. “Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. I’m sorry I called you.”  
“I’m glad you called me,” he said with a genuine sigh. “You did the right thing making sure there wouldn’t be a charge in place from the start. Most people in my field would not have been so understanding… Listen, Miss-…”  
Another pause. One that didn’t seem to have much meaning, making Chelia wonder if the phone line had cut out.  
“-Blendy, was it? Chelia Blendy?”  
Perhaps the phone line had somehow changed. His voice sounded… different. “Yes… that’s right.”  
“… How old are you actually?”  
She closed her eyes. She already felt so young, innocent and foolish. “Fourteen…” she admitted reluctantly.  
Another silence.  
A long, long silence.  
“Um… Mr-Mr Vastia? Are you-are you still there?”  
“… Sorry. Yes, I am. Sorry, just… filing. Blendy, that’s quite an unusual surname… You know, maybe I can help. I have a couple of case studies that I can email across to you, if you like. I have access to DNA database”  
“You can do that??” she gasped, before swallowing back her excitement. “I… I only have a bit of money. I’m not sure if it’s enough.”  
“No, consider it a goodwill gesture... I don’t think I could sleep easy knowing that you were still trying to work this out…”  
She smiled. The most genuine smile that she’d felt in days. The stranger on the other end of the phone was willing to help despite everything. It was like some good luck had finally started shining down on her. “You seem way too nice to be a lawyer…”  
He chuckled lightly. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, if you can send me any details you have on an email – you have my card, right?”  
“Yes!” she said, picking it back up.  
“Great. My email address is there, send whatever details you know into there, how you know the information you have, your mother’s details etc, and I will see what relevant case studies I can send across. Remember; everything you send to that address or talk to me through this line is entirely confidential – that means I can’t tell anyone.”  
“I know what confidential means…” she rolled her eyes.  
“You’d be surprised how many adults don’t,” he said more kindly. “Well… I hope I’ll be hearing from you shortly.”  
“Yes, I’ll write an email up now!” Chelia said, jumping off the bed and to the desk. “Thank you, Mr Vastia.”  
“Thank you… Chelia.”  
\----  
It was… too big of a coincidence.  
Lyon stared at his computer screen, rereading each line, each letter, trying to find the piece of evidence that didn’t fit. After all, this was what he did for a living. His entire career centred around pulling apart arguments and show the truth beneath. To separate love, emotion, biology and the law. Yet the timelines were too perfect.  
Chelia had come to the exact same conclusion that he had. She even had a picture of him. She just didn’t know his name.  
It was terrifying. The moment where Lyon had to admit he had absolutely no idea what to do.  
He ran through his options. Approach the young woman without hard evidence: Stalking. That simply wasn’t going to happen, especially to a fourteen-year-old girl. He could have emailed instead, asking for a meeting, but again it was placing the young woman into a dangerous situation that would look even worse from the outside. And the decision had to be with her. She had to make up her own mind, to decide how far she wanted to take this journey, and if she wanted to know him at all.  
If it even was him, he reminded himself. There were all too many cases of false assumptions causing family heartbreak. There were only two ways to get that the truth: DNA, which he’d mentioned briefly on the phone, or the mother’s confirmation.  
Sherry. It had been years. As soon as her name flashed in his mind he felt pinging regret, loss and guilt. She was one of the nicest people he’d ever known. A close friend, too. And like so many things over the course his career, she’d been abandoned.  
It took everything in his power not to call her. To go to her now, even just to catch up and say the long awaited ‘hello’. Apologise for lying when he said they’d keep in touch. But Chelia was now his client, and she’d given her information in confidence. Lyon was trapped by his own legal jargon.  
All he could do is follow through his new promises. She would be waiting for the case studies, and probably not even able to understand them. So, he had to study them himself, piling through papers and blanking out names.   
The horror stories. Broken families….   
Divorce, infidelity, claims of ownership…   
It all blurred together…  
Page after page…  
The alarm buzzed. He blinked in confusion, before swearing under his breath. He hadn’t even notice how late Chelia had rang him in the first place, and while lost in his work he’d missed the sunrise. His alarm was now warning him to wake up, to get ready to see some bastard claiming his client wanted full rights to the child he abused.   
His schedule looked more of the same, all of which he’d have to deal with on zero sleep. It wasn’t just inconvenient, but also immoral. He cancelled his entire calendar, checking how urgent each job was as he went.  
He was able to get out of everything except the bottom one: “Babysit Aki, 6:30pm”. A thin smile appeared on his face. Sweet, little Aki, who was always so happy to see him. Because he was one of the success stories. A shining example of the protection he gave, the lives he changed for the better. Even if he rarely got to see that far.  
He cleared the rest of his diary. Today would be dedicated to this case study. To finding the happy endings. An official follow-up call for most of these clients was more than overdue, anyway.


End file.
